Walter Bishop’s back and doing some more kooky stuff. Source: Carla Day

The episode 2 weeks ago focused on separating Ichabod’s life from that of the Horseman’s. To do so, Abbie (per the urging of Katrina while in the middle of driving) must find a man known as the Sin Eater to purge the sin linking Ichabod to Death. This becomes a problem when he gets abducted by Freemasons (led by James Frain, no less!), who then proceed to determine if he is truly Ichabod Crane by referring to an eyewitness account from his wife. Once they have ascertained his identity, they ask him to kindly kill himself to stop the Horseman.

This episode focuses on Ichabod’s backstory, to the time where he first meets Katrina while on a mission to interrogate freed slave Arthur Bernard, using time-tested methods such as repeated bludgeoning while the subject is tied to a chair. Ichabod does not follow orders blindly, however; he is never the one to actually lay a hand on Bernard, and feels that the public hangings cross a line. He makes a few complaints about the treatment of the townspeople to Colonel Tarleton, who implies that Ichabod will get the noose if he does not follow orders. Even though it may have been in the 18th century, I highly doubt that disobeying orders would warrant the death penalty; if that’s the case then the demon masquerading as Tarleton does not blend in very well.

Ichabod’s sin is revealed to be self-inflicted: while taking Bernard out into the woods to dispose of the ex-slave, he decides to spare the man’s life, but not before Tarleton catches up and dispatches Bernard himself, Ichabod blaming himself for the events that have transpired. The commander then confronts Ichabod and wounds him before vanishing. Afterwards, Ichabod makes his way to Katrina’s abode and utters the last few words that Bernard told him: “Order from Chaos” to have her accept him to fight for the Americans. It takes the manifestation of Arthur Bernard while Ichabod is meeting with the Sin Eater–now known to us as Henry Parrish–to finally forgive himself and let the man literally eat blood that is representative of the sin of guilt. This probably won’t be the only time we’ll see him around.

The episode begins with a young boy (who goes by the name of Thomas Grey) in medieval garb who is playing by himself when a little girl dressed in all white shows herself to him and lures him away from the safe confines of his home. She promptly disappears and all of a sudden a horseman begins chasing the boy into the outskirts of Sleepy Hollow.

When Ichabod and Abbie come across this boy (who has already been picked up by paramedics), he mutters something that the former realises is Old English, which later on sounds suspiciously similar to German. As he is being sent off to the hospital, black veins travel up and around his body, which later passes on to nearby victims who see the Horseman coming for them before dying. The two do more research on the horseman that the boy tells them about and learn that it is the Horseman of Pestilence Conquest that is trying to join the Horseman of Death.

As more people gradually become sick, Ichabod and Abbie retrace Thomas’ steps, they discover the Lost Colony of Roanoke, where all the inhabitants have the same black veins as Thomas, though none of them display any signs of sickness. When questioned about this, the chieftain declares that it is the spirit of Virginia Dare protecting them from the horseman that plagues them. As Ichabod returns to the hospital with Abbie, he discovers that he has contracted the illness and is sedated to keep from freaking out.

During his stupor, he temporarily reunites with his wife Katrina. She laments that she did not call out to him, and for him to be here otherwise would mean that he was dead, “or close to it.” She explains to him that they are both in Purgatory, where Moloch oversees all and decides whether the souls in this realm deserve absolution or damnation. If my theology is correct, that’s not what happens in Purgatory. Purgatory, as the name implies, is a place where a soul can find redemption and move into heaven, Before it can do so, it must purge itself of all the sins it has accumulated.

Anyway, he wakes up and Abbie manages to convince Captain Irving to sneak Ichabod and the boy back to the lost colony, being chased by Conquest. They make it to the town’s small reservoir and Ichabod jumps into it with Thomas. Just as Conquest catches up with them, it dematerialises and it’s revealed that Thomas and the rest of the clan are dead all along, explaining the antiquated clothing and language. Of course, that raises questions about how other people can see and contract Thomas’ illness; I guess we can say that magic did it.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a subplot building around Abbie’s ex-boyfriend, Luke Morales, who’s trying to dig into Ichabod’s background, even though it’s apparent to us viewers. An interesting thing to note is that Ichabod’s cover is well maintained, as evidenced when Luke calls Oxford University and is told that an Ichabod Crane does exist and “is currently on loan to the Sleepy Hollow police department.”

In my post reviewing this series’ pilot episode, I mentioned how the order of the Horsemen appearing have been thrown around. A thing that irked me in this episode was the colour pairing of the horsemen. If you’re familiar with the mythos, it should be like this, in the order which they are supposed to appear in the Book of Revelations:

After almost a week of sitting on my DVR, I’ve finally got around to watching the season premiere of Bones and the series premiere of the new show, Sleepy Hollow! The people over at FOX were quite clever by using Bones both within the show and through promos to introduce this new thriller starring Tom Mison.

You might lose your head if you don’t keep up with this. Image by Paul Shirey